A refugee family from Eritrea that has been living in a camp in Sudan has started settling into their new home in Kingston.

Goitom Weldemariam, his wife, Abrahet, and their two-year-old son Philmon arrived at the Ottawa airport Oct. 22. They were brought to the city by Fred and Greta Boven, two members of the congregation of the Westside Fellowship Christian Reformed Church on Woodbine Road, the sponsoring body.

The Bovens, along with their daughter Gail Power and her husband, Ryan, were waiting at the bottom of an escalator at the airport terminal, holding up a sign with the family’s names on it, when they saw them coming down, Fred Boven said.

Abrahet saw the sign first.

“We waved and she waved and there were hugs all around.”

The family had brought everything they owned in the world in five suitcases, including pots and pans.

Boven was glad their daughter and her husband were there with an extra vehicle to handle the added cargo.

“Thank goodness or we would have had to rent a U-Haul.”

The Bovens sent texts and videos of the happy arrival scene back to the anxiously waiting church.

Until then, the congregation only had government-issued official photos of the family, shots in which they all looked glum, so the members were glad to see the photos of them smiling when they arrived in Ottawa, church pastor Heidi De Jonge said.

“So that kind of gets locked in your mind as to this is what they looked like,” De Jonge said. “So to see them with their beautiful smiles is such a contrast. It was so good. It was a very emotional time for the congregation to know that they had actually arrived and to see those first pictures, to see their smiles.”

They drove the family to Kingston, picking up a couple of pizzas along the way, and started settling them into the lower level of a semi-detached home in Cataraqui Woods the church is providing for them.

“By the time we got there, they were really tired,” Boven said. They had flown from Sudan to Toronto and then to Ottawa.

“We stayed with them, had the pizza and then we said good night,” added his wife, Greta.

“They were happy to go to sleep,” Boven said.

Goitom woke up feeling a bit under the weather, so the Bovens took him to a Bayridge walk-in clinic. But since the new family had no health cards yet, the clinic required a cash payment of $60.

Boven checked his wallet but only had $35.

A woman who had been in the waiting room and overheard their plight approached him. She had read about the family in the newspaper and wanted to help.

“How much do you need?” she asked before turning over the $30 she had in her own wallet.

“That was nice,” Greta Boven said.

The Bovens spent the last week negotiating governmental bureaucracy at various levels as they got the family the Social Insurance Number cards and other pieces of identification they would need.

“Lots of wait, wait, wait, wait.”

A bank account was also set up for them.

Philmon’s immunization records are all in Arabic, so they will have to be translated before he can go into child care while his parents are studying English.

De Jonge said the family speaks Tigrinya, the language of Eritrea, as well as Arabic.

Goitom speaks no English but Abrahet has a rudimentary grasp of the language and can understand some of what is said to her. They will be starting an intensive course to learn English next week.

The church has an interpreter on call, the Eritrean wife of a pastor at another church.

“That’s helpful, but of course she can’t be with us all the time,” De Jonge said.

De Jonge has been trying to learn a few phrases in Tigrinya so she can speak with the family.

The congregation knows little of what the family has gone through, she added.

“We really don’t know what their back story is yet. We don’t know the conditions in the camp. We don’t know what particular situation they left Eritrea for. You just wait. They will tell you when they are ready.”

Goitom is already earning his keep.

A woman from the church needed some yard work done, so Goitom spent the day raking and mulching leaves.

“So he got his first paycheque,” Fred Boven said.

“So yesterday we took him to Walmart and he bought his first order of groceries.”

Goitom, who is a truck driver by trade, was anxious to find more work.

His wife, Abrahet, felt the same way.

“I want to learn and I want to work,” she said.

She didn’t know much about Canada before coming here, except for the fact she has a friend in Manitoba.

Canada “is very different,” she added. “We think Canada is a very good country.”

“It is too cold,” but she was still eager to see her first snowfall.

Her parents are still in Eritrea and she hopes they will be able to join her here someday.

The family is slowly getting used to suburban Canadian life, Boven said. Goitom had to be shown how to put out their recycling and garbage for pickup.

“Everything is a learning curve. But he is a very fast learner and he is a hard worker.”

The family seems to be settling in well, he added.

“They are very positive. We really are happy with them and they are happy with us, we think.”

The church is still fundraising to pay for the family’s support.

During one recent door-to-door canvass, a couple donated $20 and then called the canvasser back to give a cheque for $1,000.

“There is a big heart in this community that we have discovered. It has been amazing,” Fred Boven said.

“That has been just so heartwarming. The community and the church have been so supportive.”

A garage sale the church held was just about sold out of items.

“The fundraising has gone better than we could have expected.”

A bake sale is planned for the church on Saturday, Nov. 21, and a dinner, complete with auctions and entertainment, is scheduled for Zorba’s on Saturday, Dec. 5. More information on the dinner is available online at www.dinnerforfriends.ca.